The picture titles in the collection 0f the MCNY may not be incorrect. Randall Comfort wrote a number of books and articles on the Bronx , one on our area ” The Great North Side , or Borough of the Bronx, 1897)”. He also did extensive early photographing of old buildings in the Bronx that were being lost to history Ca. 1890-1910. From Randal Comfort’s article – Mansion of the Old Bronx . from the 1922 H.C. Brown’s Valentine Manual he wrote:
The Bowie Dash Mansion
High on the hills among old Riverdale’s most picturesque glades, the old Bowie Dash Mansion fairly overlooks the world. Dash’s Lane, narrow, steep and winding, which in days past formed the only means of access to this residence, has yielded tot he broad and beautiful Spuyten Duyvil Parkway. What a contrast! (PO – Manhattan College Pkwy today.)
Styled “Upper Cortlandt’s” to distinguish it from “Lower Cortlandt’s” in the valley below (PO – the ‘Lower” VC Mansion/VC House Museum is the one in the park) , the square stone Dash Mansion is said to have been often visited by General Sherman, one of the relatives of the family, while we are told that the late Theodore Roosevelt often played there when a boy.
The quaint gardener’s cottage on the estate far antedates the residence itself, while close by, between the years of 1776 and 1781, was an extensive Yeager Camp. ( PO- this Hessian Yeager camp was dug by Reginald Pelham Bolton ca 1913-15. It was located approx. at corner of 238th St and RIverdale Ave, upon on the sports field of Fieldston School campus.)
(PO -, So the cottage and what we believed to be the Dash Mansion on Waldo Ave & 238th St is a good chance that Bowie Dash or a member of the Dash family once owned this old ancient Cottage. More research is still needed.)